PODCAST

How To Get More Leads Than You Can Handle Through LinkedIn with John Nemo – Ep117

Over the years, social media has had a huge impact on how people interact and do business together. Among the platforms, LinkedIn is one of the largest professional user base that service providers can use to connect and get leads from. Online course creator and owner of Nemo Media Group, John Nemo, joins Paul Higgins in this episode to share his knowledge when it comes to lead generation through LinkedIn. John emphasizes the importance of understanding what your client and prospect want, then focusing your efforts on that. Learn and experience the power and benefits of using LinkedIn in engaging your ideal clients and making your content do the work.

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How To Get More Leads Than You Can Handle Through LinkedIn with John Nemo

Our guest is someone who was a reporter and in PR and corporate. He was sitting in a meeting and he thought, “Is this the best there is?” He left and then he used LinkedIn to hit record results in a short period of time. That has then sent him going into doing this for a living. He gives us a masterclass on LinkedIn. What I’ll do is hand you over to John Nemo from Nemo Media Group.

We’re excited about having you on as well. Why don’t we start with something that your family or friends would know about you that we wouldn’t?

This could get dangerous. I will say this, I am obsessed with pizza. I could eat it three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I never ever get tired of pizza. That seems important.

Do you shop around or do you have the one place that you love?

I turn away no pizza, Paul. I’m not a pizza snob. I’ll eat any type. My dad was Italian and made homemade pizza and pasta. Italian food is soul food for me. There you go. Now we’re all friends. Let’s get a pizza. I’m getting hungry.

You’ve got to build a pizza oven in your backyard. Clear off the snow and away you go. You started as a news reporter and you’ve had a great career and then obviously moved in your own business. Why don’t you take us through your corporate escapee story?

I was a reporter. I worked for the Associated Press and for different newspapers, talk radio, things like that. I transitioned into a corporate job when I got married to my wife Sara and we started having kids and I wanted to have a more regular schedule. What I did was I ended up getting jobs for trade associations, doing public relations and then social media work. It all came to a head for me in 2012. This is going to sound familiar probably to our readers. I had a great day job. I was making six figures. It was safe. I wasn’t going to get fired. I could coast for a while. The benefits were great. I was miserable.

The breaking point for me was a meeting about men in tights. I need to explain this. At the time, I worked for a labor union here in the United States in Minnesota and it was to represent nurses and we had an aggressive political leaning. It was a labor union that I worked for and I was an employee of. They wanted to do a politically themed protest for a Robin Hood tax. I’m sitting in these corporate offices, in a boardroom, in a meeting, listening to people talk about how we’re going to spend union member dues on tights, little hats and little hoodies, Robin Hood stuff and signs. I remember looking out the window going, “Is this all there is? Is this how I want to spend the next 30 years doing PR and social media for these shenanigans?” I had never been out of my own full-time. I had my wife and three young boys. My wife was at home. At that moment, I’m like, “I am out of here. I cannot do this.”

Why don’t you give us a quick view of that? What I want to do is get in the questions of what you do around your absolute expertise, which is LinkedIn. Why don’t you give us a short version?

It all ties together, which is a great thing about it. I’m miserable. I’m at that job and my real passion at the time, the entrepreneurial itch that I wanted to scratch was I wanted to open my own marketing agency. I was the son of two English teachers. I love storytelling, books, all kinds of media and I’m like, “How can I make that a profession? How can I do that full-time?” What I decided to do, I got one client, I had enough money for 30 days here on the side, and I quit. I gave in my notice. Everybody thought I was crazy. I had a plan in place and it was to understand how I could get more clients quickly without traveling, without a big budget. I didn’t have any investors. I had me, one client, and enough money for a month.

What I discovered back then and what is still even true is that I could use LinkedIn to find and engage and talk to the exact people that wanted my products and services. All the way back in 2012, within the first 90 days of quitting my job and starting my own company, me in a bedroom, wobbly folding card table and my laptop. I was able to generate six figures in revenue of new business, all of it from LinkedIn, all of it from people who had never met me in real life. I understood immediately, “This is the new world we live in. This is a way where I can get business quickly with LinkedIn.” That led me then into creating online training courses, books and coaching. That’s what I do working from home, showing other people how to use LinkedIn like I did to make that leap and to quickly bring in business, bring in leads in a way that I hadn’t seen anyone else doing to that point.

If you go back to 2012, was it easier or harder than what you thought to run your own business?

I didn’t know anything. It was harder. I didn’t have the tools, the technology and the timesavers that I do now. I had an ability to engage people. This is the big secret to LinkedIn that everyone always asks about is you’ve got to be able to overlay your real life, one-on-one persona onto LinkedIn. This is true about any online engagement. What’s unique about that platform is you can engage people one-to-one, belly to belly virtually. Where it came in handy for me understanding back then was with LinkedIn, trying to build a business.

Whether you’re a coach, consultant, business owner, whatever, there were three things I understood. The first was having a client-facing profile. The big thing with LinkedIn and many people think about is, it’s like your résumé. It’s for job seekers and HR people. You put up a résumé in the third person and talk about yourself and all the things you’ve done. What I realized is nobody cared. Nobody cared about me and my accomplishments. What my prospective clients cared about was themselves, morning, noon and after supper. That’s a quote I got from Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People. He wrote those words in 1936, “Your clients, your prospects do not care about you. They care about themselves, morning, noon and after supper.”

What I did was, I overlaid that approach to LinkedIn. My LinkedIn profile page, this is step one, went from being John Nemo’s résumé, here’s where I’ve worked and what I’ve done to a client-facing profile. The other big thing was with LinkedIn, especially as a coach or consultant, the riches are in the niches. If you try to appeal to anyone and everyone, you’ll be nobody to no one. What I mean by that is, in my example, I wanted to open up a marketing agency. Website design, graphics, PR, copywriting, emails and all kinds of stuff, I could have done that for anyone. I had experience in different industries. I could help anyone. What I realized right away was, if I target a small niche audience on LinkedIn, where I can connect with the exact decision-makers and my profile matches that approach, it becomes easy.

In my example, one of the things I recommend too with people reading is reverse engineer where you’ve already had success. For me, I had worked for the debt collection trade association. It’s not something anyone thinks of when they wake up, “I want to help debt collectors.” I worked PR and social media for a North American trade association serving debt collectors. I knew that industry. There was no learning curve. I knew that was underserved. Nobody was pitching them marketing services. When I started on LinkedIn by myself, my one client was a debt collector who I was going to build a website for.

Getting Leads Through LinkedIn: The power of LinkedIn is understanding. You can replicate real life one-on-one conversations with built-in icebreakers and ways to personalize your approach.

My LinkedIn profile header, instead of reading, “John Nemo, CEO in Nemo Media Group.” It read, “John Nemo, debt collection marketing services. Debt collection sales and marketing services.” The first line of my profile didn’t read, “John Nemo is the CEO of this company.” It read, “What I do: I help debt collectors get more leads, increase revenue and generate sales by providing industry-specific marketing services.” It was all about them. From my LinkedIn headline, through the summary was, “Here’s who I serve. Here’s what I do. Here are the benefits you get.”

Even a quick win for everyone reading, take the first sentence of your LinkedIn profile and use this template, write it all in capital letters because you can’t italicize or bold your text on your LinkedIn profile, “WHAT I DO: insert your target audience, I help this audience achieve or get 2 to 3 benefits by providing my product or service.” If even you do that one sentence, people immediately see your LinkedIn headline. Which is all about them and their industry and that first sentence and they’re, “This guy is all about me. He works with people like me. He helps people like me get these 2 or 3 benefits that I want.” That’s the key to understanding the first step to doing well on LinkedIn.

You said, “Client-facing profile,” which is the right niche. What’s the third thing?

That’s the engagement. I break it down into three Ps. One is the profile and client-facing niche approach. The second P is prospecting, where you go out and connect with the exact decision-makers. The third P I call is profits, where you are able to engage and talk to people. In my instance, why LinkedIn worked well, step one, I had a client-facing profile. I’m all about helping debt collectors make more money. The reason I’m unique and valuable to you, “What makes me unique.” I would put in the profile that phrase, “What makes me unique?” Because I spent two years working for the industry’s largest trade association doing PR, I understand debt collection marketing. I understand your niche. I only focus on you.

Here’s an example, real-time, for coaches and consultants reading. I have a guy, a corporate escapee, and he hired me to coach him. He was a longtime financial advisor. He made the leap to go out and do coaching because that’s his passion. He said, “What should I do? How should I niche it?” I said, “You become the coach for financial advisors who want to get more sales, get more clients, get more revenue.” He was successful in his career. His profile says, “Coach for financial advisors. What do I do? I help overworked, stressed-out financial advisors generate more appointments and close more sales by providing industry-specific sales training, insights and coaching. What makes me unique? Having spent twenty years as a financial advisor myself, I’ve walked in your shoes. I’ve been in the trenches. I know what works and what doesn’t. The benefits you’re going to get from working with me.” It was easy for him to build that trust.

When you go out and connect with the people on LinkedIn, this is what’s exciting, it’s a big search engine. Six hundred million members on LinkedIn and 200 different countries, two new members join every single second. Here’s the great thing. You can go out and use LinkedIn and they have every piece of data indexed about all of us like Big Brother. You can go to LinkedIn and say, “I want to use your search engine and your search filters to find debt collection agency owners in the United States who went to university at this school and who volunteers in this area.” You can get nuanced and niched. What I did and what you can do reading is find your exact decision-maker by their job title, industry type. Filter it by where they live. You can even filter by they went to school or university. You have these built-in icebreakers and conversation starters.

I’ll tell you one example of why this works well. When I was back doing this in 2012, I was trying to connect with debt collection agency, executives and owners, the people that could write the check to say, “We’ll hire you to do a website. We’ll hire you for a project.” One guy I found on that list lived in Delaware here in the United States. All I could find about his profile that was personalized was he went to the University of Pittsburgh here in the United States during the 1980s. I’m a huge sports fan. I’m a huge fanatical sports person. What I was thinking in my head was, “If I met this guy in real life and he told me, ‘I went to the University of Pittsburgh in the ‘80s.’ What could I mention about that?” Not that, “I remember, ‘Send it in Jerome.’” This was a famous sports play.

Here in the United States, college basketball is a huge thing. During the 1980s at the University of Pittsburgh, they had a great basketball team. Their star player, Jerome Lane, in a nationally televised game, went up and dunks the basketball and shattered the glass backboard. The glass came raining down and the crowd went wild and the announcer on TV yelled, “Send it in, Jerome. Send it in.” It was this amazing sports moment of the 1980s. It would be a viral video on YouTube. Everyone would see it. This happened at that university during that time the guy went there. I instinctively knew that playing to my strengths and things I’m passionate about.

When I invited him to connect on LinkedIn, “My name is John Nemo. I thought to reach out to connect. By the way, do you remember, ‘Send it in, Jerome?’” I know he went to school during that era when that play happened. He accepts the invite, Paul. He writes back 30 seconds later a one-on-one LinkedIn message. He says, “I was at the game. I couldn’t believe it. You’re bringing back all these memories. I was a student there. I was there when he dunked the ball. We all went nuts.” He’s engaged emotionally. I’ve broken the ice with him.

He’s intrigued, “Who’s this John Nemo on LinkedIn reminding me about my glory days at university 30 years ago?” He looks at my profile. “Who is this Nemo guy?” “Debt collection marketing services. I help debt collection agencies like you get these benefits.” He looks at that. He writes me another message, “I’m impressed with your profile. Looks like you do exactly what we’re looking for. Can we have a call tomorrow to discuss? Your timing is great. We’re looking for a new vendor for marketing help.” We get on the phone the next day. I close the $10,000 contract on the phone with a complete stranger from, “Send it in, Jerome.” It can work quickly.

When I was auditing clients later on and I went back to this client and asked him, “What won you over to use me and use my company for marketing? Was it our flyers? Was it our website? Was it our logo?” He goes, “No. It was, ‘Send it in, Jerome.’ I knew immediately that you are a likable, fun guy. I loved how you personalized your first engagement with me. I thought, ‘If you personalized marketing to me that way, you’ll do a great job marketing us to our leads.’ You’re creative. You’re thinking outside the box. You’re connecting it to my personal stories.” That’s the power of LinkedIn. It’s understanding. You can replicate these real-life one-on-one conversations with built-in icebreakers, with built-in ways to personalize your approach. You can then pivot and offer to business with people. That’s the part people get hung up on. That’s how powerful this platform is.

If we shift gears a little around your business and then we’ll come back to LinkedIn. What’s the vision for your business? In three years, what does Nemo Media Group look like?

My vision and the thing I’m passionate about, especially if you’re coach or consultant, this will appeal to you too, this model, I want to bottle up all the knowledge between my ears, put it out as an online course and sell it over and over again. I’ve built that model to where I have three different online courses. They’re automated, evergreen, and on-demand. One is about how to use LinkedIn to get leads. One is about how to use webinars to sell your products and services or book coaching calls. Another one is about how to use content marketing.

The beautiful thing and what I love with this, is we live in the greatest era ever to monetize your knowledge, to sell teaching. My parents were both English teachers. They were stuck in a classroom of twenty kids at university. My classroom is the whole world. I can reach anyone anywhere and sell training.For me in three years, what it looks like is selling these online courses repeatedly, hitting my monthly revenue numbers and spending little time having to do engagement or one-on-one coaching every day.

In fact, I’ve already built and scaled it to having an automated funnel with LinkedIn plus automated webinars, plus automated emails, plus content where I’m able to sell 1 or 2 of these online courses every day without having to talk to anyone, just through content marketing and automation. These are US$2,000 courses. It’s not like it’s a cheap, easy ask but if you understand content marketing and automation and enough personalization, that’s where the magic is, and the ability to get people engaged, excited, and wanting to work with you through that content. That’s where I want to be.

You talked about online courses. I know that there’s a lot of banter around the completion rates of courses. Whatever the percentages are, they’re incredibly low. What are the things that you know, and you can help people reading around getting better course completion and better results out of courses?

I’ve run into temptation. I’ve done three online courses. The first temptation is to throw everything in there to make it look impressive. I’m going to add every bell and whistle and a bunch of stuff that you don’t necessarily need and make it long and important sounding, and people don’t complete it. At the end of the day, people aren’t buying knowledge from you, they’re buying time. They want you to shortcut the process and save them time. My LinkedIn Riches Lead Generation course only takes five hours. You can get through it in less than a day and get results and get clients. The idea behind that was I don’t cover every feature of LinkedIn. I don’t go into LinkedIn groups. I don’t go into LinkedIn ads.

I don’t go into all the features of the site that don’t get you results. I’m hyper-focused. I pitch the course and I sell the course to coaches and consultants to get leads. The number one thing with getting people to complete your courses, make it digestible, easy and fast. The other big thing, the other big secret I’ve learned is ask. Before I create a course, I go to the people I want to sell it to and I have this simple one question survey. I’ll go to coaches and consultants and say, “What do you want to know more about generating leads with LinkedIn?” That’s all I’ll say. I don’t ask for any other information, “Put your name and anything.” They’ll tell me. They’ll give you the answers that can make up your course, like, “How to automate engagement? Where do I start? How do I get people to respond to my messages?” Those become the key selling points of your course and the key modules.

Getting Leads Through LinkedIn: At the end of the day, people aren’t buying knowledge from you. They’re buying time. They want you to shortcut the process and save them time.

Your job is to get people through it as quickly as possible. The big mistake you think is, “If I want to justify a $2,000 price tag, I have to have 400 hours of training and 6 million scripts.” People don’t want that. They want a fast, quick win. If you can walk them through that as quickly as possible, they’re happy to spend the $2,000. A guy posted in our Facebook group, “I got a $30,000 client. Thanks, John.” He’s thrilled. He wasn’t mad that the course was only five hours long. He used it, applied it and got a huge client. Those become the success stories. You turn around and show those to other course members and say, “Get motivated. You can do this.” Success begets success. You highlight and tell stories about the people that are getting results because they went through it, and that gets people moving fast.

I love to dive in the key questions I got from my audience before you came on, John, because I was excited to have you on LinkedIn and podcast. It’s the two best ways for coaches and consultants to generate leads outside of referrals, where referral ends up normally going into, it ends up on a dry creek. The first one is around profile views. For a coach or consultant, what’s a benchmark number on how many profile views they should be getting a week? It’s only the premium that gives you that ability. John, what’s your view on that?

My view on that is you cannot deposit profile views in your bank account. The numbers don’t matter. We all want to get concerned with how many likes, shares and profile views we get. I don’t care about any of that. I care about giving clients. I’m going to tell everyone, “The money on LinkedIn is in the mailbox.” You don’t have to post a bunch of content. You don’t have to worry about a bunch of profile views. All you have to do is find and engage your ideal clients one-to-one. You’re selling to other human beings. There’s a specific approach that I recommend for this. One is client-facing profile. Two is prospecting. Go out and connect with the exact person who would want to hire you as a coach or consultant based on your profile, your expertise, your niche. Three is using a specific style of engagement that almost nobody does.

What I do on LinkedIn is let’s say I want to sell you my LinkedIn Lead Generation course. I’m going to connect with you. You’re a business coach. You’re going to see that my profile says, “John Nemo. I help business coaches generate leads on LinkedIn.” You’re like, “He seems like a nice chap. I’ll accept his invite.” My first message to you isn’t, “Paul, I’d like you to buy my US$2,000 online course.” I say, “Paul, I see you live in Australia. I am jealous right now. It’s negative 60 Fahrenheit wind chill here in Minneapolis and there’s a foot of snow. Why do I live here?” I pivot after I personalize our first engagement. I say, “Also, curious. Are you looking to use LinkedIn to find more coaching clients? The reason I ask is I’ve got a great free training tailored to helping coaches find clients with LinkedIn.”

A big important phase, I ask permission. I don’t include the link. I don’t assume you want it. I asked your permission. This is all within a one-on-one LinkedIn message. “Paul, personal note. I’m curious, are you looking for this benefit? The reason I ask is I have something of value for free that I want to share with you.” I say, “If you like, just reply yes or send me back a thumbs up emoji and I’ll give you a link to the free training.” I end by saying, “No worries either way, great to be connected. Cheers.”

What happens is I pre-qualified people with a polite message. I can scale that on LinkedIn through either automation software or a VA helping me and talk to 10, 20, 100 coaches a day. Of the coaches that say, “I’m curious about using LinkedIn to get leads. Tell me more.” I linked them to automated content. “Great. Here’s the link to the free training. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.” Send them over to an automated webinar registration. They sign up for an automated webinar. They get pre-webinar content, tips, trainings, that get them quick wins, like how to fix your profile.

By the time they go through the automated webinar, they’re already warmed up. They’re getting wins. Through the webinar, they get to know, like and trust me to hear my story. End of the webinar and make a specific time-sensitive offer. I give people an option at the end of the webinar to talk to me live one-on-one via live chat software, and then I sell the courses. All I do is spend 5 to 10 minutes per prospect to sell a US$2,000 product. The content and the automation do most of the heavy lifting to demonstrate my expertise, to demonstrate my value, to show you I can help you.

The key is using LinkedIn to spark those conversations, like real life. I would ask you a question and if you said to me, Paul, “No. I’ve got more clients that I want to deal with. I don’t want anymore. I’m not interested.” I would say, “No problem.” I’ll stop bothering you. I’ll mark you on LinkedIn as not a prospect and move on. That’s where people get caught is, “I’ve got to worry about numbers and metrics and this and that.” It doesn’t matter. I can’t deposit any of that in your bank account. I want clients. That’s where the one-on-one engagement is done the right way, which is hard and it’s an art form. That leads people down that path where they keep saying yes to you over and over again, and then they’re ready to purchase.

Is there any difference for an online program versus a high ticket item? A lot of coaches reading and consultants have a high ticket item. They don’t have online content. Is there any difference in your methodology based on that?

No. I sell US$15,000 coaching programs on it too. Eight-week program is $15,000. It’s the same approach, which says, “Paul, great to connect. I noticed you’re a coach. You’re looking for help.” They’ll tell me, “Yes, I’m looking for help.” I’ll say, “Are you looking to do it yourself? Are you looking more for done for you, done with you?” They’ll tell me and I’ll say, “Here are a few options. I have a do-it-yourself course. I can do it with you.” The key thing is to understand the ROI of the clients. I’m not going to pitch you the $15,000 program if you say to me, “One new client is worth about $100 a month.” I’m never going to be able to get you enough business to pay that. I was asked that. I say, “So I can figure out the best place to send you, what one new client is worth? What’s the ROI of one new coaching client?” “One new coaching client is $3,500 a month.” “It makes sense for me to get you onto the phone to talk about my $15,000 program because I can get you five clients in two months.” “Are you kidding? No-brainer.” If someone says, “I’m just starting. I don’t have anything in place, but I’m going to get my first client.” I’ll move on to the online course.

It’s the same approach where you’re using content as currency. The content I give you is the same whether I want to pitch you a high ticket program or the online course. The content demonstrates my expertise. It demonstrates my knowledge. It helps you get to know, like and trust me. That’s why podcasting and audio content is helpful and video as well and webinars because those are higher trust, higher emotional engagement types of content. When you hear my voice in your head and you can hear my excitement. You get excited. You get connected to me. I’m in your head as opposed to you reading copy. It depends on what you’re selling, what the typical ROI is for that client, finding that out and then position your offer and also having enough content on the front end to work it out. Can I tell you my $75,000 mistake quick?

Go for it.

I’m not perfect. This will shock everyone. I had a guy come in through LinkedIn Profinder, which is only in the US. It’s a marketplace where you can put in a request for proposal through LinkedIn. A guy put in a request for proposal for marketing help. He was in my city. He said, “I am looking for LinkedIn marketing help. I’m a business coach. Send me a bid.” This guy had never heard of me. He hadn’t consumed any of my content yet, but I sent a good reply and got him excited and said, “Let’s have a phone call. Let me see how I can help you.”

I got him on the phone and the guy told me, “Here’s what I do. I’m a coach. A small client for me is worth $15,000 a month. A big client is worth $250,000 a year. I’m a big deal. I’m impressive.” I’m listening and going, “Wow. Okay. Great.” I say, “I see all these ways I can help you. Do you want me to do it for you or with you?” He goes, “Do it all for me. Put a bid together, something great.” The numbers you told me, this is a no-brainer. I put together a $75,000 bid to do LinkedIn and webinars and all kinds of ROI for him.

I send it over to him after this great call where we bonded and it’s nothing, like crickets for a week. I keep following up and nothing. Finally, I find his cell phone number and I text him and I say, “What happened? Are you still interested in the bid? What’s going on?” He goes, “You’re way out of my price range. I don’t want to spend that much.” I’m like, “You told me the ROI, it’s a no-brainer.” I realized he didn’t know, like or trust me yet beyond that little 30-minute call. If he had read my book, if he had been listening to my podcast for six months, if he had been through a webinar, if he had heard me on your show and then come to me, he was that much warmed up and pre-qualified.

Instead of chasing people and trying to prove yourself, let your content do all that. Let them self-select and prequalify so that by the time they get to you live on the phone or live via chat, they’re ready. I’ve been listening to your podcast, Paul, I love your philosophy. You’re funny. I could see myself enjoying having you coach me. “What does it look like? How do we do this? What are your packages?” That’s the client you want. Not, “Who are you? Who have you helped? What can you do for me?” It’s a big difference.

John, from 2012, you’ve had an amazing escalation, I suppose, in your business growth. What about people reading and thinking, “This all sounds brilliant, John, but where do I start?” Other than the do your profile or niche down, that’s cool and I start to engage, is that the place that I start on this journey?

I’ll give you a couple of simple steps. One is get your LinkedIn game in action. Especially if you’re a business coach or consultant, 99% of your best prospects are on LinkedIn. You’re trying to sell to other professionals. Get your LinkedIn game in order, client-facing profile, figure out an engagement strategy, and then you have to figure out, “How can I get people to believe in me and trust me?” If I’m brand new and I’m a corporate escapee and I’m just starting my coaching program, I don’t have twenty years of client testimonials to prove it. I need to prove it through stories and through content and through demonstrating expertise. You share your story and your content, leaving your job, all the things you learned in your niche. You also then share it with tips, insights and quick wins, like I’m sharing LinkedIn profile tips. People can take that and get a quick win and they go, “That was easy. I wonder what else John can teach me? He can teach me this? Great.”

Getting Leads Through LinkedIn: If you’re a business coach or consultant, 99% of your best prospects are on LinkedIn.

The other big thing, one, get your LinkedIn game in order. Two, create some content. Create some content that specifically helps your target audience solve some problems and also gets them to know, like and trust you. Get them warmed up to your personal brand. By the way, your biggest advantage in the marketplace, your unique thing that no one else can do is you. Nobody can replicate you. This might come as a shock to our readers. There are a lot of LinkedIn trainers out there. There are millions of them. You can pick anybody.

We all have unique approaches and stuff. At the end of the day, it’s like choosing a car mechanic. Everyone is providing the same service, but you pick the guy you like. You pick the guy you trust. You pick the guy you enjoy talking to. You do that based on who that person is. If your online presence with LinkedIn and with your content doesn’t showcase your personal brand, doesn’t help people get to know you, they’re never going to buy from you. We’re still selling to humans, especially a high trust profession like coaching or consulting one-to-one. That’s high trust. I have to feel comfortable. I have to make sure I’m going to like you, that we get along, we have similar a sense of humor, and that I’m a good fit for you. That’s where your content can do a lot of that for you. It can attract the right people if you share your personality and your content. It can repel the bad ones who would not be a good fit for you, who don’t like your ‘80s jokes, who don’t like your sense of humor, who don’t like your outlook on life. That way, you bring in the right people.

What are the biggest challenges in running your business?

My biggest challenge is not having enough time delegating, probably not trusting people enough to outsource more parts of my business. I’m getting there. Trust has always has been a big issue for me, my whole backstory and growing up and having some childhood abuse. That’s the other part of it too, is the mindset. That is a big challenge, especially for a coach or consultant, solopreneur, you’re on your own. I’ve worked hard at improving my mindset and visualization and I can share resources on that. I would say, delegating and then having the right mindset. Your thoughts do control the outcome. They do control your life, how you deal with rejection, how you deal with angry customers, how you deal with making that next outreach. That would be the two things that are challenging.

Before we go into the next section, I’d like to mention our YouTube channel called Build, Live, Give. You get great tips to help corporate escapees like John to rapidly grow. Please look at the content, subscribe, share with other corporate escapees. Also, at the end, I will do my three key take outs from John. I’m going to struggle because you’ve given me so much, but I will find my top three. The next question is, what are your daily habits that make you successful?

Visualization. My monthly revenue tripled when I started doing visualization. I’m not making that up. Here’s what happened. I read a book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. You can find it anywhere. I started doing exercises and visualization and it’s specific. My results tripled. What happened was I started acting differently without even realizing it and closed more sales and was more positive, more confident, more engaging and more enthusiastic. That resulted in more sales. Not hocus-pocus, not phony magic, just being the person I needed to be to close deals and it’s through visualization. That’s the number one daily habit.

I know you mentioned Sara before, your wife. If she’s reading this blog, what would you like to say to her about the support she’s given you through this great journey?

You’re patient. It’s a roller coaster ride. I’ve been doing it for years. We had a lot of lean months. We had a lot of times where she’s been my biggest cheerleader. She’s always said, “I believe in you. You can do it.” You need a spouse or life partner who believes in you. If you have enough struggles on your own, if your partner doesn’t have your back, it is tough. She’s invested in me. She holds down the home when I’m off doing work stuff, raising the kids. Also, she’s not afraid to interject and give thoughts and give ideas. She’s a brilliant entrepreneur in her own right, which is helpful. The fact that she’s always said, “I believe in you.” We both have a similar motto, which is, “Make memories. Go for it.” Live your life. You’ve got one shot. Take your shot. You can always go back and get another day job. Let’s be honest. Those aren’t going away. Go for it. Take your shot.

The next section is the Give section. What’s a community or charity that you support and why?

RansomedHeart.com. I’m a huge Christian, a huge fan of Jesus, not religion, just my guy, Jesus. I hope that’s okay to share. They are a great ministry. They’re not religious. They’re about Jesus. John Eldredge is the main guy. He wrote a book called Wild at Heart. A lot of people know him for that. It’s been life-changing. It connects me to the purpose and to my belief in Jesus. They’re amazing. They rescue people’s hearts. I can’t think of a better mission than getting people’s hearts back and seeing them come alive. That’s what they do. I love it.

The last section is the Action section, where I’ll ask you some questions and get some rapid-fire responses. The first one is, what are your top three productivity tips?

I would say, number one has been Calendly, an online calendar protecting my schedule, protecting my turf. Another great one for sending out emails, I do a technique with LinkedIn called warm emails. I’ll connect with you on LinkedIn, send you a message. If I don’t hear from you, I want to send you a warm follow-up email because a lot of people aren’t savvy on LinkedIn messaging. I don’t want to lose the chance to engage. I used to have to copy and paste each email individually. I use Gmail and you can connect your work email account to it or whatever. There’s a tool for it called GMass. It’s free. It plugs into Gmail. You upload a CSV file and it sends out one-to-one personal emails, puts in the person’s name, the company name, whatever data you want, and saves me a ton of time in follow-up emails.

A third tip I would say that I use all the time for productivity would be you Ontraport for automation. That’s a CRM and an email system where all of my engagement is automated. In the sense of, “If you like this, I’m going to send you that. If you click a link in this email, you’re going to get this piece of content. If you don’t open this email, you’re going to get this one instead.” Even with my webinars, I use WebinarJam in every webinar and its automated behavior-based tools. If you went on the webinar but left before the sales pitch, you automatically get this follow-up email. If you went on the webinar, saw the sales pitch and didn’t purchase, you get this email. It’s all automated. I can meet people with context based on behaviors, both my emails and my webinar follow-ups, and that results in a lot more sales and engagement because it’s based on what you did. That is a huge time saver.

What are some favorite podcasts you love to listen to?

I like the Ransomed Heart podcast, that ministry that I mentioned. For business, there are too many good ones to name. I listen to a lot of sports podcasts. I like Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. It’s entertainment and fun. I like Ray Edwards for copywriting. Ray Edwards Show is a good one for business. That’s off the top of my head. I do a mix of entertainment, sports, and then a few business ones. I don’t get too heavy into too many of them with everything going on.

My last question is what impact do you want to leave on the world?

I would love people to know two things about me. One was, “That guy was crazy about Jesus.” If you follow me online, LinkedIn, Facebook, I’m sharing Him not in a pushy way, a spammy way, Bible-thumping way, but I’m glad to know who this guy is. I’m such a mess. I’m glad I got a hero to save me, which is my approach to Jesus. The second thing would be, I would love people to get inspired and feel like, “Why not take a shot? Why not quit my day job? Why not do this? This knucklehead, John, did it. I can do this.” I’m not anyone special or unique. I didn’t give up. Let me end on this. We live in the single best time in human history to take whatever your passion is and turn that into a profitable enterprise. The technology, the tools, the ability to reach the exact people you want to sell to.

Psycho-Cybernetics: Updated and Expanded

I grew up in the 1980s where you couldn’t have done that. You couldn’t have a radio show, a TV show, a printing press. That was the gatekeepers in place. Now you have YouTube, podcasts and blogs. There’s no excuse to spend another day at a job you hate when all these tools are available. Being able to bottle up your expertise, your knowledge, your passion, put it out as content, engage with people, sell to them online, process payments online, get paid online. Be able to live the life that you want on your terms. What I would love to have an impact with is getting more people doing that.

You can find out so much more about John at LinkedInRiches.com. You can also go and follow him as well. You’ve got so much passion. You’re inspiring, John, and thanks for coming on and sharing your story.

Thank you so much.

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There was so much value given by John. I love his energy. I had three key take outs. The first one is a profile that is client-facing. The second is the riches are in the niches. The third one is, have conversations with potential clients through Messenger. That was such a powerful thing. John has got an awesome amount of content. You can find more about him at LinkedInRiches.com. If you know other corporate escapees that would get great benefit from this blog, please share it with them. Remember, please, take action.

About John Nemo

JOHN NEMO is an Online Course Creator and Bestselling Author who helps Business Coaches, Consultants, Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners generate quality leads, build their client base and increase revenue using digital marketing platforms, tools and strategies like Content Marketing, LinkedIn and Webinars.

The author of 8 books, John is a former Associated Press Reporter, Talk Radio Producer, Award-Winning PR Director and Social Media Consultant based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In addition, John regularly guest blogs for Inc. Magazine and American City Business Journals, and his work has also been featured in The Huffington Post, Business Insider, on LinkedIn’s official marketing blog, the Entrepreneur On Fire and Social Media Examiner podcasts and many other outlets online.

Since 2012, John has helped hundreds of Business Coaches, Consultants, Small Business Owners, Entrepreneurs and others across dozens of different industries worldwide leverage LinkedIn to generate nonstop sales leads, clients and revenue.

The son of two English teachers, John grew up in a home where the basement walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with books. A lifelong love of story led him to a career in journalism, where he started his career in 1997 as a reporter for The Arizona Republic and later the Associated Press.

John later worked in talk radio as a producer and on-air talent at KTIS-AM radio in Minneapolis-St. Paul. He also served as a freelance writer for hundreds of different magazines, newspapers and websites, covering topics ranging from Fantasy Football to Norwegian Architecture to Rock Music.

John has also worked as a national-award winning PR and Social Media Director for large trade associations in the debt collection and healthcare industries.

During its first 90 days, his 2009 PR campaign for the consumer financial education website Ask Doctor Debt led to more than 125 interviews across the United States, reaching an estimated 25 million consumers and netting an estimated $1 million in free advertising/publicity value. John was also was able to secure a weekly, ongoing segment for Ask Doctor Debt and ACA International representatives on top-rated Fox News Channel that ran weekly for more than four months straight.

In 2010, John’s PR campaign for the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) reached an estimated 133 million people in just 90 days and would have cost $5 million in advertising costs to duplicate. Billed as the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. history, John’s campaign garnered local, national and international media coverage from outlets as far away as BBC Radio in London.

During those same 90 days, John created and executed a Social Media Campaign for MNA that took its Facebook page from 0 to 11,000 fans, racking up 496,000 views. He also created and distributed content through an MNA Blog that generated 342,000 page views and 2,800 comments, along with building a YouTube channel that generated 97,000 views.

In the summer of 2011, John helped create and release the Minnesota Nurses Association iPhone/iPad App, which made MNA one of the first Labor Unions in the United States to release its own App. It allowed MNA’s 20,000 members to get the latest association news, videos and updates, report unsafe staffing at their hospitals, look up and contact their local legislators and more.

In 2012, John Nemo left MNA to start his own marketing agency, Nemo Media Group, which provided services including Consulting, Website Design, Copywriting, Video Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Creation, Sales Presentations and more for clients across the United States.

In 2014, John created his first online course, LinkedIn Riches, followed by Webinars That Work and Content Marketing Machine.

John lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, Sara, their three crazy young boys and Rosie the dog.